


The French Leave

by Innwich



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Gangs, M/M, Missing Persons, Mystery, Private Investigators, Sexism, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-05-27 22:43:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6303082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innwich/pseuds/Innwich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tavish DeGroot was a private investigator in the industrial port city of Well. Little did he know that a case of a missing young man would lead him on a wild-goose chase fraught with distraction and misdirection.</p><p>Ch 1: The Case            Ch 2: The One-Eyed Private Eye<br/>Ch 3: The Copper          Ch 4: The Stranger<br/>Ch 5: The Doctor           Ch 6: The Drugstore<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Case

I killed him for money and a woman.  
And I didn't get the money and I didn't get the woman.  
Pretty, isn't it?  
 _Double Indemnity_

The Blue Moon Bar and Dining was tucked in the corner of 31st and Elm. Its name was spelled out in tarnished copper letters mounted above its double doors. On its left was an antique shop that had closed for the night. The shop’s shutters were graffitied with a crude drawing of a topless woman.

The bar was four blocks away from the Greenham train station, which had been shut down by the Well City Railways Company after the old factory buildings in the area had been converted into warehouses and offices. The station’s name had been removed from the rail map years ago, but the outside of the station remained on the route of the local police patrols to deter thrill-seekers from climbing over the walls and onto the abandoned tracks.

The street was empty save for a taxi idling across the road. The bored bouncer in front of The Blue Moon gave Tavish the once-over. His gaze lingered on Tavish’s eyepatch and rumpled overcoat, but he didn’t say anything. Tavish was used to the stares. The bouncer went back to watching the taxi and Tavish pushed open the double doors.

The inside of the bar was hazy with cigarette smoke. The dim blue light from the lamps drew lazy shadows on the walls. A jukebox by the wall was playing a slow waltz tune. Tavish strained his only good eye to peer around the bar.

Menus and condiments and napkins were set out neatly on the many tables that took up most of the space on the floor. It was too late in the evening for dinner; less than half of the tables were occupied. A triad of office workers were leaning back in their chairs and laughing too loudly over a bowl of peanuts. Several lone patrons were sitting at the bar, which was tended by a withered man with bony hands. A man in his shirtsleeves was slumped over the bar with an unfinished drink at his elbow.

Tavish had sobered up for the evening so he wouldn’t be refused entry to the bar for being too drunk, but he was beginning to think that he had worried too much. This was the kind of bar for people to drink stupid before stumbling home.

“Mr. DeGroot? Over here.”

Tavish turned around at the low voice that he had spent most of his afternoon speaking to on the phone yesterday. “Ye’re early, Ms. Reilly.”

Ms. Reilly was sitting at the bar and nursing a tall glass of orange cocktail. She was wearing a blue little number cinched by a black belt around her waist. A black shawl was wrapped around her neck and her hunched shoulders. From her earlobes dangled a pair of large silver hoop earrings that Tavish could spin around his thumb. The white pearls around her neck were too round and too big to be mistaken for the real deal.

Tavish took the seat next to her. “Have ye been waiting long?”

“I came straight from work. I can’t stand waiting around at home,” Ms. Reilly said. She sounded raspy, like she had a cold or she had been crying. The heavy powder she wore on her face hid the wrinkles in her forehead and the bags under her eyes, but Tavish would put her in her mid to late forties. Her fluffed hair was glossy and the kind of black that came out of a bottle. “I had to take pills to help me sleep last night. You gotta help me find my boy.”

“Aye, that’s why I’m here,” Tavish said. The withered bartender came to take his order. Tavish ordered a pint of beer for himself, and waited until the bartender set a beer on a wooden coaster in front of him before he spoke again. “When was the last time ye saw yer son?”

“Jeremy left home for work in the morning last Friday and he hasn’t come home since then,” Ms. Reilly said. “It ain’t like him to skip out like this. He knows I don’t have time to worry about him and his brothers.”

Tavish wrote down the date in his pocket notebook. “Do his brothers know where he might’ve gone? I’m nae surprised if they know more than they let on.”

“They haven’t seen him since Christmas. I’ve spent a whole weekend phoning them and making sure of that for myself. They’ve all moved out of the house, y’see. They’re big boys; too old to live with their ma,” Ms. Reilly said wistfully. She was going off on a tangent, and Tavish was inclined to let her. Sometimes people let slip details that they didn’t know were important. But then Ms. Reilly returned to the topic at hand without prompting and said sternly, “I know what you’re thinking, but my sons don’t lie to me. They ain’t helping him run away.”

“I wasn’t planning on saying anything,” Tavish said. “It sounds like ye have a handle on yer sons.”

“I oughta. I raised them with my own two hands. I know them better than they know themselves. My son is missing,” Ms. Reilly said. “I’ve brought a picture of him with me. I figure you’ll need it if you’re gonna look for him.”

“Och aye. A picture will help. It’s easier for a lad tae change his name than his face,” Tavish said.

“That’s what I thought.” Ms. Reilly rummaged in her handbag. Her shawl slipped down her arms, and Tavish caught a waft of spicy and smoky scent that clung stubbornly to her clothes. Tavish didn’t know if the smell came from a perfume that Ms. Reilly was wearing. He couldn’t tell designer perfume from store-brand fragrance. As far as he was concerned, there were only two types of perfumes: The ones that smelled nice and the ones that didn’t. He couldn’t decide which of the above Ms. Reilly’s perfume belonged to, if it was even a perfume at all.

Ms. Reilly took out a photo from her handbag. It was a colour photo, but its colours were muted and blurry under the dim lighting. Tavish had to squint and hold the photo up to his face in order to see it clearly.

It was a photo of a young man straddling the years between adolescence and adulthood, posing in a park with a baseball bat hoisted over his shoulder. He was dressed in a sweat-stained T-shirt, a pair of baggy sport shorts, and white socks that were pulled up to his knees. He had a narrow face and a weak chin that he wouldn’t grow out of. He was grinning toothily and glowing with the kind of cockiness that belonged to people that thought they were smarter than they actually were.

“He’s real good at sports,” Ms. Reilly said. “He coulda gotten into college with a baseball scholarship if he wanted. That’s why he trains people at the gym; he’s good at it. I keep telling him to find another gym that can afford to pay him better, but he won’t hear a word of it.”

“Was that where he was going when he left the house last Friday? The gym?”

“Yeah, he works there from ten to five on the weekdays. He’s being paid peanuts for the hours he puts in,” Ms. Reilly said with a huff. “Why? You think that has to do with him missing?”

“I’m nae ruling anything out yet, Ms. Reilly.” Tavish flipped over the page that he was writing on and slid his notebook across the bar top to Ms. Reilly. “Do ye have the address of the gym?”

Ms. Reilly scrawled a name, Good Gravel Gym, and an address in her sloped handwriting. The gym was located in Harrington Point, which looked out to the city centre from across the harbour. It was where rich people built seafront mansions with private jetties to dock their yachts. It was a nice address, nicer than the outskirt of the city centre where Tavish had his office.

“Have ye talked tae the coppers?” Tavish said.

“‘Course I have. It was the first thing I did,” Ms. Reilly said. “But I’ve dealt with cops. I know how they think. They think my boy is a slacker that has run away from home ‘cause he’s got in troubles once or twice. That’s boys for you. They can’t keep outta troubles. He ain’t a bad kid. He’s doing well for himself.”

“Troubles, ye say?” Tavish said, plucking out the one word that had peaked his interest. “It earned him time with the coppers downtown?”

Ms. Reilly fixed Tavish with a hard stare over her cocktail. “He didn’t do anything illegal, if that’s what you mean.”

“What trouble was it then?”

“He and his brothers used to get in fights with other kids after school,” Ms. Reilly said. “It was just roughhousing between boys, but the cops had to stick their big nose into it. And not once, mind you. The cops pulled me out of work and told me to post bail when they knew full well I couldn’t afford it. What kinda cops go around lurking in playgrounds and rounding up kids for fighting?”

The police force in the city was understaffed and there weren’t nearly as many officers dealing with street crimes as there ought to be. If cops had shown up, it would have been because someone had been concerned enough to give them a ring. Tavish didn’t say it out loud, because he didn’t think Ms. Reilly wanted to hear it, and because Ms. Reilly had gone full steam ahead and finally told him the real reason for their meeting tonight.

“The cops don’t like my boy, Mr. DeGroot. The most they’ll do is print out his picture and stick it on a wall in their office. That’s why I’m asking you to find him,” Ms. Reilly said hotly. “If you wanna insist my son is a criminal, which is a lie, then you ain’t gonna get anywhere with finding him.”

“Nah, I got no beef against yer boy,” Tavish said. “I need tae know as much about him before I can start looking for him. But if ye don’t want me on the case, I’ll leave. Ye haven’t paid me yet. Ye won’t have lost anything other than the time we’ve spent talking tonight.”

“Time is the one thing my boy don’t have.” Ms. Reilly wasn’t looking at Tavish. Her eyes had been drawn by her son’s photo. It had been knocked to the edge of the bar top. Maybe it was the photo, maybe it was Tavish’s reassurance, but Ms. Reilly didn’t look like she was ready to tear Tavish a new one anymore. She brushed her hair away from her face and drained her cocktail.

Watching her drink reminded Tavish of the beer that had gone flat in his pint glass, but he didn’t think he could stop at one beer.

“I want you to take the case.” Ms. Reilly put down six fifty-dollar notes on the bar top. “I’ll pay you more when you find my son. You won’t regret it.”

“This more than covers me fees. Ye don’t have tae reward me for doing me work,” Tavish said.

“There ain’t no money I won’t pay if it means I can see my son again,” Ms. Reilly said. She drew her shawl tighter around her shoulders. “Consider it an incentive. You don’t have to take it, but when you come back with Jeremy, the money will be there.”

Tavish eyed the notes on the table. It was more cold hard cash than he had seen during the dry spell that had made up most of last month. He would be lying if he said he didn’t need it. He was in no position to refuse money, especially money that was offered to him for his work. “Before I take on the case, Ms. Reilly, you should know I can’t guarantee I’ll find yer son. He could be anywhere. I’ll try me best, that’s all I can promise ye.”

“That’s all I need to hear.” Ms. Reilly nodded tightly. “It’s more damn than anyone has given about my boy in a long time.”


	2. The One-Eyed Private Eye

Tavish woke up early to drive down to the courts in his black Ford Cortina. The rear bumper was loose and it clanked when Tavish parked his car in the lot behind a government building. He had gotten his car cheap from a used car dealer that didn’t like to wear a tie. If he had thought he would be staying in America for the six years he had been here now, he would have gotten a car that didn’t sound like it was falling apart when he was driving.

Tavish worked well into the afternoon and ate a soggy sandwich for lunch at a drowsy bistro that he swore not to eat at again. He didn’t find any court records on Jeremy Reilly. Either he had been looking in the wrong place, or the boy had never wound up in a court. Tavish hadn’t known much more about the Reilly boy than he had last night.

Ms. Reilly wasn’t listed in the phonebook, but Tavish found her in last year’s yellow pages. Tavish drove out to the western suburbs. He would go to the Reilly household, back to where Jeremy had disappeared from, and worked his way from there.

The address took him to a two-storey house with no garage. A shrivelled tree in the garden was tilting towards the fence. The name ‘Lawson’ was printed on the side of the mailbox in front of the driveway. Tavish rang the doorbell, and asked the scrawny teenager that answered the door whether Ms. Reilly was in.

The teenager hadn’t heard of Ms. Reilly and wasn’t interested in what insurance salesmen had to sell him. He shut the door in Tavish’s face and saved him the trouble of thinking up a sales pitch.

Tavish walked back down the driveway. It was four in the afternoon. It wouldn’t be too long before either Mr. or Mrs. Lawson would return home. They might know where the Reillys had moved to. Tavish would have to wait in his car and entertain himself with the radio and not the flask of whiskey he kept in the glove compartment.

“Hey.” An old man was turning off a hose in the garden of the house next door. Thick grey hair curled behind his ears and behind his neck. His skin was etched with wrinkles that he had gotten from spending too much time on his lounge chair. He wore a bomber jacket over his striped pyjamas. The cracked leather of the jacket looked as sun-baked as the old man himself. “I heard you’re looking for the Reillys.”

“Aye, I’m looking for Ms. Reilly to renew an insurance policy she has with my company,” Tavish said. “Are ye a friend of the family?”

“I’m no friend of them,” the old man scoffed. “They are a vicious bunch, the Reilly kids. I’m glad to see the back of them and their mother, I’ll tell you that. That’s what happens when eight kids are raised by a single mom that don’t spend near enough time at home.”

“Eight kids?” Tavish said in surprise. When Ms. Reilly had talked about her sons, he hadn’t thought she meant she had eight of them. “They must’ve been a handful.”

“Each one of them is as bad as the last,” the old man said. “They terrorised near every household on this street.”

“I ain’t bloody surprised,” Tavish said, raising his voice to sound more like he was outraged and less like he was fishing for information. “It’s easy for kids to hang out with a bad crowd when gangs are recruiting them young in playgrounds these days.”

“The Reilly boys don’t need gangs to tell them to beat kids up and break windows,” the old man said. There was spit on the old man’s chin and a shine in his eyes. If gossiping about a neighbour could rile him up like that, talks of politics would send him into cardiac arrest. “No, the eight of them are enough trouble to stir up hell on earth. Finally got rid of them after the police was involved.”

“Ye don’t happen tae have their new address, do ye?” Tavish said. “I got tae deliver this insurance renewal tae Ms. Reilly.”

“I have her address in the kitchen. She don’t like me too much, but she needs the Lawsons to redirect letters to her new place.” The old man shuffled back into his little house. Tavish watched a school bus turn onto the street, and the old man came out into the garden again with a scrap of paper was torn from the corner of a newspapers. “You don’t want to go there now. She won’t be home till six.”

“Cheers, mate.” Tavish took the piece of paper from the old man. An address had been scribbled on it with a leaky fountain pen. The blotchy ink was still wet. 39 Cairns Street, South Ellis Grove. It was two suburbs and a thirty-minute drive away; Tavish could get there well before six.

“You lost your eye in the war, didn’t you?” the old man said.

“Nah, lost it way before that.”

The old man nodded, but apparently he hadn’t heard Tavish, because he said, “Yeah, nasty stuff, that war. Got a friend that has a kid came home with one leg missing. Lucky we won it for you people in Europe.”

Tavish had heard these exact same words before. The conversation that had followed had given Tavish a concussion and a night of nice angry shags, both of which Tavish couldn’t think back to without more than a little bitterness.

So Tavish shoved down those thoughts like he did everything that made him want to visit the bottom of a bottle. “What about Mr. Reilly? Do ye think he’ll be interested in a life insurance policy?”

“There ain’t a Mr. Reilly. Wouldn’t surprise me if those boys have more than one father.” The old man wrinkled his nose like he had been asked to ride on a garbage truck. “You gotta be a fool or a tramp to find yourself with eight kids and no husband.”

“She could have lost the husband in the war.”

“The eldest kid ain’t old enough to have been around during the war,” the old man said dismissively. “Like I said, a fool or a tramp, and she ain’t a fool.”

There wasn’t much for Tavish to say to that. Ms. Reilly was his client and not a target of one of his divorce cases. Tavish wouldn’t be getting anything other than speculation out of the old man on the subject of Ms. Reilly. Tavish said his goodbyes firmly, and drove to the Reillys’ address.

South Ellis Grove wasn’t much different from the suburb that Tavish had left. It wasn’t nicer or worse. Cars were parked on the sides of the road but there was no one in the streets. In front of the townhouses there were tiny square patches of grass that barely qualified as a garden.

The driveway of the Reillys’ house was empty. Four bicycles were chained to the metal fence that encircled the garden and the driveway. Tavish tested the chains and rust came off in his hands. The weed growing under the wheels were undisturbed. If Ms. Reilly had eight children, Tavish could imagine these bicycles had once been the cause of many fisticuffs. There wasn’t much use for the bikes now other than rusting away in a garden as keepsakes.

It was getting late. There were no nosy neighbours for Tavish to talk to. The road was getting busy with people driving home from work.

Before heading back to his car, Tavish stopped by a phone booth in the corner of the street and pulled out the list that he had made of the high schools that Jeremy had likely attended. There were four schools in the neighbourhood of the old Reilly house. Tavish went down his list in alphabetical order, and hit the jackpot on the second school he rang, after he had told the principal’s office that he was a prospective employer checking to see if Jeremy had graduated from the school.

Jeremy’s records were pockmarked with troubles had dogged him like a shadow. The school had finally expelled him after he had sent a freshman to the hospital after a beating in the basketball court behind the school. The parents of the freshman had called in the police and refused to drop the charges.

Tavish thanked the office lady on the phone, and returned to his car.

By all accounts, Jeremy was the kind of boy that would be better left to rot and fester with the other undesirable elements of the streets so society could forget about him. But Tavish had promised Ms. Reilly he wouldn’t pass judgment. He was hired to find the boy, and that was all he would do. If anything, Tavish had a better understanding Jeremy after this day of preliminary investigation; Tavish was hardly the first person to talk about perfect childhoods.

Tavish was five minutes into the drive back to the city when he realised he was being followed by a red Ferrari.

The Ferrari was keeping two cars between it and Tavish. Tavish wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t misjudged the distance and missed his exit at a roundabout. But when the cars behind him turned onto different roads and the Ferrari followed him around the roundabout for a loop and a half, Tavish started frowning at his rear view mirror. The Ferrari exited the roundabout at the same time that he did, and Tavish sat up straighter behind the wheel.

Tavish did three loops around the next roundabout, just to make sure he wasn’t being a paranoid bastard. The Ferrari stuck to him like they were doing the loop-the-loop.

Tavish didn’t recognise the car or its plate number, but cars could be bought or rented or borrowed. It could be any of his enemies coming to pay him back for an old grudge.

God knew Tavish had enough of them to fill a graveyard.

Setting his jaw, Tavish exited the roundabout and merged onto the highway that passed through the western suburbs and the city centre. The highway was long and straight and terrible for tailing people.

Tavish switched to the passing lane and sped up.

To his horror, the Ferrari surged forwards and into the passing lane with him. The driver had dropped all pretences of being subtle.

“Ye are kidding me.” Tavish kept his foot on the accelerator and darted a quick look into the rear view mirror. He couldn’t see the driver past the glare of the setting sun on the Ferrari’s windshield. The back of Tavish’s neck was slick with cold sweat. He had been a right idiot, hadn’t he? Of course no one would think it was a good idea to use a flashy sports car for a stakeout. The Ferrari wasn’t tailing him; it was _chasing_ him.

When they roared past a sedan and a delivery truck, a slight movement on the driver’s side of the Ferrari caught Tavish’s eye.

The driver was rolling down the window.

Tavish clutched at his steering wheel. On a normal day, he was wary about driving on account of his poor depth perception. The last thing he needed now was to be gunned down in the middle of a highway and drive his car into oncoming traffic.

A cigarette was flicked out of the window, and the window rolled up again.

Tavish saw an exit coming up ahead and took a sharp right to get off the highway.

The red Ferrari followed him.

Tavish was speeding down a road outside the wall of a gated community. He had driven past road signs and billboards but he was too focused on ditching in his tail to remember where he was. He took the turns that he could take and missed the ones he thought he could trick his tail into taking, but his tail never fell for it. It felt like the headlights of the Ferrari were burning holes into his rear view mirror.

Tavish didn’t know what was the purpose of this little car chase anymore. He had followed people in his car in surveillance operations before. When his target got suspicious and took unnecessary turns to shake him off, he drove past them and counted his losses. He didn’t hunt them down and breathe down their neck like Death on a bloody white horse.

Driving without aim or direction, Tavish rolled into a narrow lane. A pack of university kids in bright red shorts were laughing at the door of a bowling alley. When Tavish looked at his rear view mirror, the red Ferrari was gone.

“Bloody fucking hell.” Tavish let out a shaky breath. He pulled up his car at the kerbside, waiting for the Ferrari to show up again. It didn’t. Tavish only started his car once the pounding in his ears dulled to a low throb. Either Tavish had lost his tail for good, or, as was the more likely case, the driver had gotten bored of toying with him like a cat with its food.

  


* * *

  


When Tavish drove past Baxter’s Bar, he slowed down and considered getting a drink to calm his nerves. The lights in the bar were dimmed by the crowd and rowdy cheers were drifting out of the windows. By the sound of it, there was an American football game on the television tonight.

Tavish didn’t mind drinking alone, but he preferred to do it when there weren’t many people screaming around him. Steering himself, he drove back to his office building and parked his car in the underground garage.

The lifts had been powered down for the night. Tavish trudged up the stairs to his office. The stairwell smelled like yesterday’s trash.

Tavish shared the second floor with a small accounting firm. The accountants that owned the firm had left hours ago; it wasn’t a busy season for them, Tavish walked down the hallway in the dark, unlocked the door to his reception room, and let himself into his office.

Closing the blinds, Tavish loosened his tie, and took out his cot and pillow and covers from his closet. He moved the two chairs in his office to the walls, so he could unfold his cot in the space that he had cleared out on the floor.

He sat behind his desk and put aside the telephone bills that he would worry about later. His line of business didn’t have many returning customers. If he had thought the tagline ‘Black Scottish One-Eyed Private Investigator’ would bring in more clients than it would scare away, he would’ve put it on his office door a long time ago. Unlike some of the P.I.s he had the misfortune of crossing, he didn’t have insurance companies wiping his arse and feeding him cases through a straw.

But it could’ve been worse. He could have been forking out for both a flat and an office.

Tavish emptied his coin pouch. Coins were piled in a dully silvery heap on his desk. There were more than enough petty cash for him to send his weekly telegram to Scotland. Tavish tore out a page from his pocket notebook and wrote:

_I got a new case about a missing boy. It is keeping me busy._

He counted the words and eyed the coins in front of him. He could write to his mum about being stalked by a red Ferrari and still had drink money to keep himself well-watered for the rest of the week. But, as Tavish stared down at the black lines that stretched across the page, he knew in his gut that he hadn’t seen the last of that car.

He ended his message simply:

_Love you, Mum._

Tavish put the page into the pocket of his overcoat because otherwise he would forget to take it with him to the post office when he went out for breakfast tomorrow. His blind mum would bully the telegram boy into reading the telegram aloud for her and Tavish would know his mum was fine by herself in their lonely family home in the moors.

Tavish watched a soccer game on the television in his reception room and smoked half a pack of cigarettes until he was feeling a wee bit woozy in the head. Then he switched off the lights in his office and went to bed.


	3. The Copper

The next morning, Tavish sent out his telegram at the post office and drove to the Clem Harbour. The harbour was nestled in an warehouse district at the end of the Eastern train line. It was a short drive from the city centre and took no longer than fifteen minutes despite the morning rush hour traffic coming into the city.

Tavish parked his car on a street next to an empty park. A single trail cut through the grass and sparse trees. Tavish waited by his car, but there were no other cars on the road. There wasn’t even a jogger out on a morning run. He couldn’t see a tail, but if there was one, they would be hard-pressed to follow him out into the waterfront without showing themselves.

The waterfront was lined with old warehouses that bore the names of their companies and wares in bold white print on their red brick walls. None of the warehouses were occupied. The walls were blackened by mould and pollution, and the windows that weren’t boarded up had gaping holes in their frames.

The Clem Harbour was a quarter of the size of the Well Harbour. Like its waterfront, it hadn’t come out of the decline of the manufacturing industry gracefully. Two decades ago, it might have seen as much traffic in its waters as the Well Harbour still did today, but now the most it saw were the seagulls that fought over the scraps of food they found ashore. The mooring field in the harbour wasn’t crowded, not even during the summers when Well City saw long sunny days. Now, in the middle of winter, there couldn’t be more than three dozen boats moored and bobbing in the waves.

Tavish hadn’t been invited onto Mundy’s fishing boat before, but he knew it by sight. It was moored to a buoy a far way away from its neighbours. The white paint was flaking off of the walls of boat cabin. Yellow stains ran down the cabin walls along the trails where water dribbled down from the windows when it was raining. Mundy was the third owner of the boat, having bought it off of a fisherman’s widow. It came with a rusty engine eaten away by the sea salt in the gears and holes in the hull where the ugly rocks off the coast would fit like the missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle. The repairs to the ship had costed Mundy twice as much as the boat had.

In the harbour, a yellow dinghy with chipped paint was being slowly but steadily rowed towards the dock. Tavish turned the collar of his overcoat up against the brisk breeze and went down to the dock to meet the dinghy.

“What do you want, mate?” Mundy said, climbing out of the dinghy and onto the dock, wrapped in a thick tan suede coat. The tip of his nose was red with cold. He was wearing sunglasses even though there wasn’t a drop of sunlight in the sky.

Much like Tavish, Mundy had come here alone to the States for work years ago. He had family in Australia, which was all Tavish could wrangle out of him about himself. And unlike Tavish, with tanned white skin and two good working eyes in his head, Mundy had no excuse to stand out like the sore thumb that he was.

Mundy was leaner than a strip of beef jerky and tougher than a cowhide belt. From the way he’d told it, he’d been a big game hunter back in Australia and had a jagged bracelet of scarred teeth marks around his right elbow to show for it. In Well, no contrabands were moved around on the streets without him knowing about it and he was on a last-name basis with the prostitutes in that side of town south of the Darling Bridge.

The rookies he worked with named him Skinny Mundy behind his back. The Homicide detectives, who knew that dead wives were always killed by their husbands and dead husbands their wives, were firm believers of the Occam’s Razor approach. They kept their cases simple, their lives uncomplicated, and called Mundy ‘Oz’ to his face. Mundy had been with the police force for as long as Tavish had worked this racket, but he still scowled when he heard the nicknames because he hadn’t learnt to take a joke.

“I don’t fancy this is a social call,” Mundy said.

“Och, what do ye take me for? Can’t I be dropping in on a friend out of the kindness of me heart?” Tavish said.

Mundy bent down and chained his oars to his dinghy. “I can smell it when people want to ask me for favours. They smell like you: Like booze and smoke and a night of no sleep.”

“Ye just about described every crook and copper at yer station, Sherlock Holmes.”

“Nah, I can smell it,” Mundy insisted, kneeling at the edge of the dock and tying his dinghy painter to a dock cleat. “I have a better nose than most people, even better than some dogs. I can smell when people are lying, and when they’re scared pissless.”

“Oh really? And what do they smell like?”

Mundy cracked. A thin-lipped smile broke across his long face. “What do you think? Like booze and smoke and a night of no sleep, dickhead.”

“Ooh, funny man, are ye?” Tavish said. Seeing Mundy was still kneeling by the edge of the dock and tying a knot, Tavish gripped Mundy’s collar and pressed down on his back to keep him from standing and gave him a firm tug towards the sea. “We’ll see how funny ye’ll be when ye’re taking a dunk in seawater.”

“Crikey, get off me.” Mundy said, struggling to stand up and get out from under Tavish’s hold, but his legs were pinned under himself. His arms were flailing as he tried to keep himself from toppling over into the sea. There was no railing along the side of the dock. Just as he was about to fall into the water, Mundy reached backwards and grabbed Tavish’s calves. He dug in his blunt nails just enough to make it painful. “If you make me go into the water, you’ll be dead, DeGroot. You’re going down with me.”

Tavish laughed, and dragged Mundy back onto the wooden planks of the dock. Mundy plopped onto his arse with the grace of a new-born foal, his long legs sprayed awkwardly before him. Tavish said, “That’ll teach ye for talking smack when ye’re on yer knees, lad.”

“You’re dead,” Mundy repeated, and went back to tying his dinghy properly to the dock.

“Aye, I let ye took the piss out of me, and now we’re even,” Tavish said. “How about that favour? Ye up for it?”

“Let’s hear it first” Mundy tested the knot, and, satisfied with it, straightened up.

“I have a new case. I could use a leg up if ye got one for me.”

“That’s what I thought,” Mundy said. “It better be a drug ring this time. I’m not shaking down pimps for intel on unfaithful husbands for you again.”

“Ye’ll like a bleeding drug ring,” Tavish said. “Nah, it’s a missing kid in his early twenties. The mother hires me because no one else misses him.”

“Don’t know how I can help you. I don’t touch any of the stuff that is sent to Missing Persons.”

“He was kicked out of school after getting in tae a fight that landed him in hot waters. It doesn’t seem like it was hot enough tae put him in juvies but he didn’t go back tae school either.” Tavish handed Mundy a photocopy of Jeremy’s picture.

“A kid that has bad teeth and plays baseball,” Mundy said, looking at the picture. “You have your work cut out for you. These nippers are a dime a dozen. I can walk into a high school and half of the baseball team will fit that description.”

“But nae many of them have been taken downtown for a nice chat with the coppers.” Tavish tapped a finger at the bottom of the picture, where he had written Jeremy’s name and age and the year that he had been kicked out of school. “I can’t find anything in the court records, but maybe he has an open file at the station.”

Mundy looked at him over his sunglasses. “You’re suspecting foul play.”

“I’m hedging me bets,” Tavish corrected him. “I still have tae check out where he works later. But he’s been missing for almost a week now, and I’m just starting. I’m checking every lead I can find at this point.”

“A week is a lot of ground to cover, mate,” Mundy said. He folded the photocopy in half and put it in his coat. “I’ll ask around for you. See if Missing Persons are onto anything too, but chances are they’ve put your kid on the back burner. They’re gonna look for the missing little boys and dotty old ladies first, and they get plenty of those missing persons cases on their desks.”

“Aye, I know. I’m nae putting money on them getting around tae him anytime soon,” Tavish said. “I owe ye one.”

“You owe me more than that,” Mundy said without heat, checking his watch. “I missed my train. I’ll have to take a cab if I want to get to work on time.”

“Forget a cab. I’ll give ye a lift.”

Tavish led the way back to the park where he had parked the car. Mundy shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his coat. It was funny Mundy lived out here on the harbour on a draughty boat when he couldn’t stand the cold. A day like this wouldn’t keep the snow on the moors from melting back in the Highlands. Mundy had insisted that the sea was ‘the next best thing to the Outback for getting away from bloody people’, but Tavish preferred his ground firm and flat under his feet when he wasn’t hungover.

Tavish got into his car. Mundy had to adjust the passenger seat to give himself more leg room. Once Mundy had put on his seat belt, Tavish started the car, and drove round the park and down the road that he had come.

“I can solve your case for you right now, DeGroot,” Mundy said.

“How’s that?” Tavish said.

“The kid ran away,” Mundy said. “Save yourself the legwork. Wait him out, and he’ll turn up like a bad penny.”

“That’s easy for ye tae say. Ye’re nae working private; ye got cases coming out of yer ears. I have tae earn my keep, otherwise I’ll have tae say goodbye tae my office,” Tavish said.

“How about I trade you, mate?” Mundy said. “You’ll be the overworked copper and I’ll be the private dick that can sleep on the job whenever he fancies.”

“No one is stopping ye from doing that at yer job, ye lazy bugger,” Tavish said.

“Piss off, I’m a bloody professional.”

The traffic outside of the city centre was heavier than when Tavish had left for the harbour. It was getting close to half-past nine when offices were opening for business. Mundy was quiet for the drive. He might have nodded off, but it was hard to tell when he had his face tilted towards the window on his side. He grunted and woke up of his own accord when the car stopped in front of the police station, a block down from the City Hall.

Mundy let himself out of the car. Tavish watched him walk through the heavy doors. There was no telling if Mundy would find anything useful. Even if the Jeremy had a criminal record, it could have nothing to do with his disappearance. Tavish turned his car around, and headed out of the city centre again.


	4. The Stranger

The Good Gravel Gym was a boxy building in a strip mall right across from a train station. Its walls were painted white and its windows were narrow. It was sandwiched between a pharmacy and a bank. The waterfront wasn’t far from the strip mall, but Tavish couldn’t see the Well Harbour. The view was blocked by the residential developments that had cropped up in Harrington Point at the turn of the decade when the last of the factories had moved out and big firms had set up offices in the city centre.

Tavish parked his car outside the gym. Through the windows, he saw a young man in blue shorts and a soaked white T-shirt riding an exercise bike in a room lined with mirrors. There were treadmills, racks of barbells, lifting benches, and exercise machines that Tavish didn’t know the names of. Back home, when he had been a lad, he had run across freezing hills and wielded broadswords that had been longer than his arms. These days, the most exercise he got was pushing paper and taking phone calls.

A bell jingled when Tavish walked into the building. The lobby was sparsely decorated, with two loveseats sitting beside the door and a potted palm standing against the wall. It wasn’t much warmer than the streets outside. Behind the reception desk was a short round man with a receding hairline and a well-groomed pencil moustache above his lips. If it were not for the tennis jacket zipped up to his double chin, he could have passed for a prissy tax attorney.

The man put down his magazine, and was smiling widely when Tavish approached the desk. “Good morning. Are you interested in joining our gym?”

“I’m looking for a young man,” Tavish said. He flipped open his wallet and let the man leaned over the desk to see his PI licence. “Jeremy works here, doesn’t he?”

“Jeremy isn’t here today,” the man said, sitting back down in his swivel chair. His smile had dropped and he clasped his hands in front of him. “He isn’t in trouble, is he?”

“That’s what his mum wants tae know. He’s been missing from home since last week,” Tavish said.

“I know he hasn’t come to work for the last couple of days, but I didn’t think it’s this serious,” the man said. “I figured he’s found another job but doesn’t want to tell me about it. This isn’t the first time he doesn’t show up several days in a row without notice.”

Tavish made a mental note of it. Ms. Reilly had made it clear that Jeremy only worked at the gym. “Doesn’t he work full-time here?”

“He used to, but I have hired another trainer, so now Jeremy only works in the morning,” the man said. “I fit Jeremy in the early afternoons if he has to work in the morning for one of his side jobs.”

“I didn’t know he has a side job,” Tavish said. “Any chance ye have an address?”

The man scratched his chin. “Sorry, I can’t help you. Jeremy talks my ear off about everything. I don’t hear half of what he says.”

“But he’s told ye about them?” Tavish said.

“He’s mentioned he raked in a lot of dough from the jobs, but I didn’t think much of it.”

Tavish picked up on the uncertainty that the man’s words trailed off to. “Ye thought he was lying.”

“I’m not saying he’s a liar,” the man said. “There are a lot of hotshots that come through and train in this gym. They think a lot of themselves and more when they have their shirts off. Jeremy is great with them; he fits right in with that crowd. He tends to exaggerate when he talks about himself. I take the things he says with a grain of salt.”

“Do ye know where else he may have gone off tae?” Tavish said. “Maybe he’s mentioned a friend outside of town.”

“Last time he came in for work, it seemed like he had a thing going with a girl,” the man said. “Has to be the sixth girl I’ve heard him talk about this month. He can’t finish a shift without talking about a girl he’s seen on his way here.”

“We’ve all been there,” Tavish said. “Thanks for the help. I appreciate it.”

It wasn’t too odd that Jeremy took other jobs to make up the difference without telling his mum after his hours had been cut. Maybe the jobs were tiptoeing on the wrong side of the law, or maybe he didn’t want his mum to worry. But if Jeremy had been telling the truth about the money, it could be a promising lead. Money was one of those signposts that always popped up on the sides of a line of investigation, and more often than not it was pointing down a road that Tavish didn’t like to go.

Tavish drove back to his office. He checked his answering machine but he wasn’t left with any messages. Mundy hadn’t called him back about the case. Lighting a cigarette, Tavish pulled out his phonebook to ring up the gyms that were listed in the city and in the suburbs around Harington Point. By the time he reached the end of the listings, he could only say for sure that Jeremy didn’t work for any of them.

Tavish rubbed his eye and stubbed out his cigarette. It was late enough in the morning that he was hungry for a meal more substantial than coffee and the pancakes he had had at Baxter’s. He tried to eat his lunch early to avoid the queues before the shops were filled up with office workers getting their lunch. Even the quiet burger joint behind the news agency saw queues during lunchtime. Tavish put on his overcoat and locked his office behind him. In the hallway, muffles sounds of people talking could be heard from the office of the accountant firm. The accountants weren’t out for their lunch break yet. Tavish called the lift, and took the stairs when the lift grunted and whined and rose past him to the upper floors.

The stairs went down to the garage and Tavish walked through the gate at the side of the building. Tavish was no more than a ten-minute walk away from the section of 7th street that had the busiest restaurants and diners in the city, but he would just get a fish curry from the Indian takeout place down the street today. The curry was always a good choice when he didn’t want to waste time thinking about what food to get. It burnt his mouth and made his eye water, but it was nicer about it than his whiskies.

Tavish turned around the corner of his building, and drew to short stop, narrowing his eye at the red Ferrari parked in front of the building.

He hadn’t marked down the license plate of the car that had tailed him yesterday when he had been busy trying to shake the car off, but there weren’t many red Ferraris hanging about the city centre in the middle of a work day. The sides of the street were lined with parked cars, and the Ferrari was parked next to a fire hydrant. The car was spotless as if it had come out fresh from a car wash. The floor was free of clutter and the beige leather seats hardly looked like they had been used.

An owner that loved their car this much couldn’t be far away.

The only people on the street were a delivery man carrying parcels out of the back of his van, a woman putting letters into a mailbox, and a dark-haired man standing by the stairs at the front door of the building. The man was smoking and watching the door, wearing a silver-plated watch on his wrist that would get him robbed blind in the wrong part of town.

“Ye pick a fine day for a picnic,” Tavish said from behind the man.

The man didn’t jump. He turned around, taking the cigarette out of his mouth, and gave Tavish a sweeping look that betrayed little of his thoughts. He was a thin man with broad bony shoulders, and his hook nose and sharp cheekbones added to the gauntness of his face. He was almost as tall as Tavish, but his pinstripe suit and good posture made him look taller.

“Mr. DeGroot, I presume,” the man said. He had an odd, heavy accent that could have come from any part of Europe and was thickened by the cigarette he had put back in his mouth.

“Who the hell are ye supposed tae be?”

“Dupont,” the man said simply, breathing out a mouthful of smoke. Although his cigarette looked no different from the cigarettes that Tavish smoked, it smelled like spice and wood and burnt trash. It was the smell that Tavish had noticed on Ms. Reilly’s clothes back in The Blue Moon when they had talked. “I want to talk to you about Ms. Reilly’s case.”

Tavish crossed his arms. “I don’t talk about me clients with strangers that lurk around me place of business.”

“I’m hardly a stranger,” Dupont said. “I have a, shall we say, invested interest in Ms. Reilly’s well-being.”

He took out his wallet, slid out a picture and handed it to Tavish. It was a black-and-white photo of a man and a woman standing inside a train station. The picture had a timeless quality to it. It could have been taken anytime back when it still had been rude for men to not wear hat and fashionable for women to wear their hair short. There were no signs or notices that named the station, but it must have been a large station where major rail lines intersected. Old lamps hung down from a high ceiling, a large clock was ticking on a wall, and people were lining up at the ticket windows.

The woman in the picture was wearing a dress suit and a scarf. She was a young, pretty thing, but Tavish could see traces of the future Ms. Reilly in her, in the shape of her eyes and her brows and a cocksure smile that she shared with her son. Standing on her right, Dupont was similarly youthful, with an unwrinkled face and an arm around Ms. Reilly’s waist.

“You can understand why I followed you yesterday after you were loitering outside Ms. Reilly’s house,” Dupont said, “considering the disappearance of her son. As a matter of fact, it was me who recommended your service to her”

“Is that so?” Tavish said. “Who did ye get my name from? I’m sure ye don’t know me from Adam, and I’ve never seen ye in my life.”

“I told Ms. Reilly to look in the yellow pages and your fees were reasonable.” Dupont sucked on his cigarette. “I want updates on the case.”

Tavish stared at him, and stared some more. Dupont had made himself comfortable leaning against a wall. The punchline didn’t come.

“If you are waiting for an invitation, now would do,” Dupont said.

“Ye have balls, I’ll give ye that. But for all I knew, ye could be a nosy neighbour pretending tae be more than what ye are. Even if ye are telling the truth, I don’t make a habit of spilling the beans to me clients’ sweethearts,” Tavish said. “I don’t work for ye, and I don’t have tae tell ye crap.”

Dupont hadn’t moved from his spot against the wall. He sucked on his cigarette, and said, “I see you need more convincing.”

“Ye can’t take a bloody hint, can ye?”

“I can’t imagine it’s good for your business if you have to spend too much time on one case,” Dupont said. “How much did Ms. Reilly pay you? Four hundred? Five hundred dollars?”

“It’s none of yer bloody business,” Tavish said shortly.

“If the boy is in trouble, then it won’t help him to drag out the case for any longer than necessary, will it?”

Tavish narrowed his eye. “What makes ye think he’s in trouble?”

“Please, the boy does nothing but makes troubles. He is trouble. But I’m sure you’ve already heard that,” Dupont said. “Believe it or not, I’m trying to help.”

“How do ye think ye’re gonna do that?” Tavish said.

“Maybe I know things that the boy hasn’t told his mother,” Dupont said. “Do you tell your mother everything?”

“Fine,” Tavish said grudgingly, ignoring the jab. “What do ye know about Jeremy’s job?”

“He works as a trainer at a gym. It’s not a glamorous job, but it’s a job,” Dupont said. “But Ms. Reilly must have told you this.”

“What about the odd jobs that he is doing on the side?” Tavish said. “The ones that are making him extra money.”

“He doesn’t have another job.”

“Then ye’re no help tae me,” Tavish said. “Get going then. I have a job tae do, and I don’t have time for the likes of ye.”

Dupont’s pale gaze searched his face. What he had seen must have made him realise Tavish wasn’t going to give, because he stood up from the wall and headed back to his car. “My office is in the vicinity. I’ll swing by and see how the case is going, DeGroot.”

Tavish didn’t leave until he saw the Ferrari drove down the street and around the block and out of his sight.

Tavish bought his curry takeout, and ate it in his office. When he was done putting away his dirty dishes, Tavish heard the accountants next door going out to lunch. His phone lay silent in its cradle. In spite of the bravado he had sprouted at Dupont, he was running out of ideas of where to go with the case, and his disagreement with Dupont had made him restless and unsettled. Tavish organised his file cabinet and shredded the notes that he had kept on the Latham case. When he was done, he dug out the bills he had crammed into drawers of his desk. He wrote checks, went down to the postbox to mail them, and found himself walking the old familiar path to Baxter’s. The bar was too quiet. Tavish left after finishing his glass of whisky. At the office, his phone didn’t ring and Dupont didn’t show up, but the waiting kept Tavish up till it was late in the night.


	5. The Doctor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, a new chapter!
> 
> I’m sorry it took me this long to finish it. I have no excuse. I can’t promise that I’ll put out regular updates or that I won’t go on a hiatus again, but I do intend to see this fic to its end one day. Thank you to anyone who is reading this, and I hope you’ll enjoy the rest of the story.

The phone rang shrilly in his office. It woke Tavish from a hazy dream that slipped away as soon as he was blinking at the ceiling. Wincing, Tavish fumbled for the phone on his desk just to shut it up.

“Aye, DeGroot speaking.”

“‘Morning, Sunshine,” Mundy grumbled on the other side of the line. “Took you long enough to pick up the bloody phone.”

“Ye are the Devil, that’s what ye are, tae call me at this ungodly hour.” Tavish groggily sat up in his cot and dragged his covers up from the floor where they had dropped. The windows were dark behind the blinds of his office. His mouth was dry as cotton as he said, “What time is it?”

“Four-fifteen in the morning and I’m running late. Let’s make this snappy.”

Tavish groaned and pressed his hand to his forehead. He had only gotten a little over five hours of sleep. His head was pounding like a bongo drum and his shoulders were too heavy for him to sit up straight. “Late for what? Did ye find blokes as mad as ye are tae have a morning tea party with?”

“Try blokes that don’t care to be seen in the day with a cop,” Mundy said shortly. “But I ain’t calling you to chat about my work. Dug up intel on your boy. I reckoned you’d be interested.”

“Hold on. I’ll get a pen and paper.” Tavish tried to grab his suit jacket from the back of his chair without leaving his cot, but his chair was a good metre out of his reach. The carpet was coarse under his feet when he got up and collected his notebook and pen from his jacket. He shivered in his underclothes. His office had gotten cold during the night; the building only turned on the central heating in the day when he was rarely staying in his office. Tavish drew his covers over his lap once he sat back down on his cot. “I’m listening.”

“Your boy has been reported to Missing Persons, but they are putting his case on the back burner. I can’t blame them,” Mundy said. “Looks like your boy gets his jollies from beating lunch money out of kids his own age. A real nice piece of work.”

“Are we talking about gangs?”

“His file says nothing about that. Parents were unhappy that their kids were beat up at school, so they came in talk to the nice coppers,” Mundy said. “His last assault and battery charges were more than a year ago. His records were clean after that. He didn’t even have a speeding ticket.”

“Thanks for putting in the work, mate. I appreciate it.” Tavish sighed, and tossed his pen and notebook to his desk. His pen rolled across his desk until it bounced off his empty mug. Tavish leaned his forehead against the plaster wall behind his cot and closed his eye. If he laid his head down on his pillow, he would fall asleep on the phone. “But ye could’ve waited after the sun is up tae tell me ye got nothing. I mightn’t be sober after hearing that, but I would live.”

“I ain’t done, am I? One of my rookies recognised him from the picture. He didn’t know his name till today, but he knew his face from a stakeout operation,” Mundy said. “Your missing boy used to be a regular customer at a drugstore in Darlington.”

“I’m nae running tae Darlington just because a drugstore clerk can whip up a mean ice cream float,” Tavish muttered.

“Yeah, that was why the kid liked to go in through the front door and leave through the back. ‘Cause of ice cream floats. His mum would spank him if she found out he’s been wasting his money on cold desserts.”

“Ach, come off it. I’m nae playing Twenty Questions with ye. It’s four in the bloody morning. I have half a mind tae wring yer neck the next time I see ye,” Tavish said. “What was he doing at the drugstore then?”

“I’d have told you if I knew. You’ll have to ask the bloody back-alley quack that owns the place.”

“What has the quack done tae end up in yer good graces?”

“According to my informant? He’s guilty of practicing without a licence, drug dealing, organ trafficking, jaywalking, and a whole lot of nothing that I can’t prove,” Mundy said.

“Sounds like I wouldn’t trust him tae prescribe me cough drops if he were the last man on the planet,” Tavish said.

“You got that right. You want to catch him, you better get moving now. It’s why I’m calling you. His shop doesn’t open during the day. One-eighty-two Argyle Street,” Mundy said. “He’s German. Goes by the name of Ludwig. His mates call him doctor but he’s too smart to get caught calling himself that.”

“Am I gonna run intae yer boys camping in a car outside the place?”

“Nah, the brass called off the surveillance operation and said it was a massive waste of time. This back-alley quack is a slippery character all right,” Mundy said sourly. “He’s more careful than a dog with a bone.”

After they said their goodbyes and hung up, Tavish washed up in the washroom that he shared with the accountants. The tiled floor was cold so he made the visit short.

The sky was black as a pit when he walked down the streets. Darlington was located near the west end of the Well Harbour and south of the Darling Bridge. It was only a thirty-minute walk away from the business district. At the edge of the business district, there were ads offering part-time jobs wrapped around traffic light poles. Not many of the ads had a name to go with the phone numbers. Tavish was reading an ad for a Bible study group when the light turned green.

Tavish reached Darlington at the witching hour in the day when the pimps had slunk home and the garbage trucks hadn’t started doing their rounds yet. Tavish walked past a bum sleeping in the doorway of a closed fast food shop. The streets corners were empty and the neon lights outside the bars had been switched off. The pavement outside the stretch of bars was sticky under the soles of Tavish’s dress shoes. Shards of glass glittered in the gutters.

One-eighty-two Argyle Street was an ugly building. Its grey walls had been stained by grime and rain water. Its two shops were rented out to a fishmonger and Ludwig’s Drugstore.

The front of the drugstore couldn’t be more than six feet wide. An empty news rack belonging to the Well City Gazette sat outside the drugstore. The store windows were pasted over with newspapers that were dated from last year. The newspapers were layered so thickly that they dimmed the light coming from inside the shop. There was no crack in between the pages of newspapers for anyone to peek into the shop.

Tavish tried the door. It was locked.

“Is anyone in there?” Tavish put his ear to the door. Someone was moving around inside the drugstore. There were shuffling noises like the person was dragging heavy items across the floor. Tavish rapped his knuckles sharply on the door. “I can hear ye. Open up. I’ve got some business with ye.”

The rustling stopped. The shop went quiet, but no one came to the door. No one told Tavish to go away either.

Tavish knocked again. He couldn’t hear a peep from the drugstore anymore. The lights were still on in the drugstore but maybe whoever that had been inside the shop had left through the back. God knew Tavish had chased after enough people who would rather not talk to him because of the PI licence in his wallet or the colour of his face. Tavish slipped around the building and into the alley at the back to see if he could catch the person in the drugstore.

The sharp smell of fish and piss hovered in the narrow alley. Tavish held his breath as best as he could, but he could taste the stench in his mouth, and it turned his stomach. Pieces of torn posters were stuck to the walls. There was an old poster promising a fiery weekend two years ago at a nightclub called The Pint Size. Stevie Wonder gazed out from under a thick tangle of scotch tape with half of his face missing.

Huge yellow plastic crates cluttered the back door of the fishmonger’s shop. Tavish had to pick his way around the crates, trying not to knock over the crates or touched the mouldy bricks of the walls.

The space behind the drugstore, in contrast, was blessedly bare. There was nothing except for the reinforced steel door that opened to the back of the drugstore. Tavish had put his hand on the doorknob when a long, cold saw was pressed against the side of his neck. The jagged teeth of the blade dug into his soft skin. It wouldn’t take much effort for his assailant to pull the blade and tear his neck into shreds.

“Hold still if you don’t want me to cut you,” the man said. He had a high voice and a German accent that gave his words oddly-shaped edges.

Tavish could kick himself for not checking his back. The man had followed Tavish into the alley and Tavish hadn’t noticed a thing. “Ye do this tae everyone that comes tae yer shop?”

“Only people that don’t use the front door,” Ludwig said, too cheerfully for a man holding a saw to another person’s neck. “I’ll have to frisk you. It won’t hurt if you don’t make any sudden moves.”

“I’m more concerned about sudden moves from ye,” Tavish said.

“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing. I’m very good at it.” Ludwig hummed behind him. He patted the front of Tavish’s overcoat with one hand. He removed the notebook from the breast pocket in Tavish’s coat, flipped through the pages, and put it back in the pocket. It didn’t take long before his hand stalled over the gun that Tavish was wearing under his suit jacket.

“Think about me gun and I’ll break yer fingers, doc. The nurses will need more than a couple of splints tae put them back together,” Tavish said.

Ludwig laughed. “I have no intention of taking your weapons. You can keep your gun if it makes you feel better.”

He patted Tavish’s waist and the pockets of his trousers, but he didn’t take his wallet. He checked Tavish’s legs before straightening up again.

“Turn around for me,” Ludwig said.

“So ye can look me in the eye when ye tear out me throat?” Tavish said, but he turned around.

Ludwig wore a pair of round spectacles that were too tiny for his long face. His hair was closely cropped at the temples, giving him the air of a military man, and slicked back with gel, though a lock of hair had gotten loose and flopped over his forehead. He was wearing a red tie, a white buttoned shirt, and a pair of trousers that were held up by suspenders. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up to his elbows. The skin under his fingernails was dirty and crusted with what might well be dried blood.

“ _Wunderbar_. You’re not wired,” Ludwig said, lowering the saw from Tavish’s neck. “Now we may talk freely.”

“Is that what ye were frisking me for? A wire?” Tavish eyed the saw in Ludwig’s hand. The saw looked worse than it had felt. Its blade was wide and broad and the length of a man’s forearm; it would fit in a butcher’s shop. “Bit of an overkill tae wave that around, isn’t it?”

“You can’t be too careful, my friend,” Ludwig said. He wrinkled his nose, and looked towards the crates piling outside the fishmonger’s door. “They still haven’t cleaned the alleyway like I asked them to. Before we continue, how about we move this conversation inside?”

Tavish wasn’t in the habit of entering suspicious places with people that had threatened him with a blade, but he had the solid weight of his gun resting under his arm, and he had grown up with swords all his life back in the Highlands. A bone saw was a butter knife when compared to a broad sword that could take a man’s head off in a swing. Ludwig had caught Tavish off guard, nothing more. Tavish knew not to make that mistake again.

“That’s fine by me. I got questions for ye if ye care tae answer them.” Tavish motioned at the steel backdoor. “After ye.”

“Not through the back. It’s, heh, messy in there.” Ludwig beamed. His teeth were white and straight as sterile tiles on a hospital bathroom wall. “Come with me. We’ll go in through the front door, and we’ll talk.”


	6. The Drugstore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm still alive!
> 
> I’ve edited the previous chapters to put in Medic’s and Scout’s names so they match the name drops in _the Naked and the Dead_ comics. That comics blew my mind btw.

The drugstore was smaller on the inside than it looked outside.

It had more shelves than it had walking space. Its two aisles were each barely a foot wider than Tavish’s shoulders. The shelves were stocked to the ceiling with medicines and toiletries and chocolates and sweets in no order that made sense. Tubes of toothpastes sat next to a pitiful selection of cough medicines, while band-aids shared a shelf with lipsticks and last week’s magazines at the end of the aisles.

Despite the cramped space, Ludwig picked up speed as he strode down an aisle towards the prescription counter at the back of the store. He might be trying to get away. A guilty man always did.

In his haste to follow Ludwig down the aisle, Tavish knocked over a box of chewing gums with his elbow. A white flurry of feathers shot out from behind the shelf where the chewing gums had been sitting. Tavish shouted and bumped into another shelf, rattling rows of toilet paper. The dove fluttered up to the large unmoving fan in the ceiling, and then cocked its head at Tavish from its perch.

“Bloody hell,” Tavish said, staring up at the dove. His heart was racing and he was roused to full wakefulness for the second time this morning. He didn’t mind birds; he had spent many afternoons waking up to flocks of them scavenging around the park bench he had passed out on. He just didn’t like it when they came near his face with their curved beaks. It was a silly childhood fear left over from the winters when his mum had tucked him tightly into bed so his toes wouldn’t be uncovered in the frosty nights, and read him the story of the Happy Prince and the Swallow that had pecked out his sapphire eyes.

“Archimedes, there you are! I was looking for you,” Ludwig said. “Where have you flown off to?”

The dove flew over the top of the shelves and towards Ludwig, who was clicking his tongue at the bird from behind the prescription counter.

Tavish carefully sidled down the rest of the aisle. What little could be seen of the concrete floor was scrubbed clean. There was no sign of the heavy object that Tavish had heard being dragged around inside the drugstore earlier.

Ludwig was locking his bonesaw in a slim metal box when Tavish joined him at the prescription counter. The dove was perched on Ludwig’s shoulder. Ludwig put away the metal box behind the counter.

“You caught me at an unfortunate time,” Ludwig said, cleaning under his fingernails with a tablecloth that had been bleached pale pink. The tablecloth was smeared with blood, or thin strawberry jam. “I was in the process of moving bags of birdfeed to the back. My birds were eager to get their food.”

“Was that what ye were doing with a bonesaw? Feeding yer birds?” Tavish said, leaning on the counter. There was a stool but he didn’t feel like sitting within spitting range of a man who had held a saw to his neck.

“Well, no. The saw was for you. Doves aren’t picky. They’re like flying rats. They don’t get sick from eating rubbish. Imagine if their digestive systems could be transplanted into humans. It would solve world hunger!” Ludwig burst out laughing. The dove on his shoulder was startled, and hopped onto a shelf on the wall behind the counter.

“At least yer doves are not raccoons. Those rodents will eat ye out of yer house and yer fingers,” Tavish muttered.

“Yes, a giant raccoon stomach will be perfect!”

Tavish stared at Ludwig. He was talking to a madder man than he had thought. Mundy’s warning hadn’t prepared him for back alley bonesaws and giant raccoon stomachs. “I’m looking for young Jeremy. Ye don’t happen tae know where he is, do ye?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Ludwig said.

Tavish waited a beat, and then another. When Ludwig’s too-white smile waned and he still didn’t elborate, Tavish realised he was waiting for an invitation. “Don’t keep it tae yerself. So where is he?”

“At home, I assume. He asked me for a sick leave over the phone even though he was in perfect health. He didn’t come in last week when my shipments arrived,” Ludwig said. “But I suppose he could be pretending to be ill to avoid coming to work. I hope I didn’t have to look for his replacement. It’s hard to find people who could outrun police cars.”

“Could be yer shipments got him killed,” Tavish said.

“I don’t see how it is possible. My shipments are dead themselves. Fresh but very dead,” Ludwig said.

“That’s cute,” Tavish said. “Ye weren’t half as cute when ye were trying tae slit me throat.”

“No need to be bitter, my friend. I was just saying hello,” Ludwig said. He folded his dirty tablecloth into a neat rectangle and wiped down the counter. The cloth left a pink streak on the white countertop. “If I had tried to wound you, you would be talking out of a hole in your throat now.”

“And ye’d be bleeding brains out of a bullet hole in your head, so I’d say we’re even,” Tavish said.

Ludwig hooted with laughter. “It’s not too late for it! I don’t close until seven.”

“Ye’re insane,” Tavish said with feeling. Mundy must have found his informants and crooks in mental asylums. It was a more comforting thought than wondering whether the pink streak on the countertop had the consistency of human blood. “It’s six in the morning and it’s already been a long bloody day. Just say ye don’t know anything and I’ll get out of yer hair.”

“I may know something,” Ludwig said, pulling out a jar of pale green hard boiled sweets from under the counter. “Candies?”

“I don’t take sweets with me pills,” Tavish said.

“Personally, I recommend mixing pills with alcohol. You can barely taste the alcohol,” Ludwig said. He popped a hard boiled sweet into his mouth as he said, “Where was I? Ah, yes. You’ll want to try the fish market down by the docks. The boy is fixated on my friend’s little sister.”

Tavish leaned closer in spite of himself. Jeremy’s boss at the Good Gravel Gym had mentioned that Jeremy was fancying a girl. This was the only thing he had heard the whole morning that was relevant to the case. “She must be a bonny lass tae have stolen his heart.”

“Oh yes, it’s curious how hormones muddle the human mind. He wouldn’t shut up about Zhanna ever since I lent him to her for running errands at the docks,” Ludwig said, smiling widely at Tavish’s sudden attentiveness. The smile had rows of teeth in it. “I’d look for him myself there, but I’m – heh – preoccupied at the moment.”

“Thanks for the tip, doc. But I have another theory,” Tavish said. “Could be ye know exactly where he is. Ye couldn’t get yer hands on yer shipments. The police was tightening the net around ye. They were showing up on yer doorsteps. Ye got sick of waiting and figured ye could do yer own harvesting at home. Ye didn’t even have tae ask him. Ye offered him money and he lay down on yer operating table like a lamb.”

“It’s not a bad guess, but there are a couple of holes in your theory,” Ludwig mused. “Namely, he is too useful to be harvested. My friend would kill me and bury me in a grave if I hurt a hair on his head.”

“Yer friend?” Tavish said warily.

“My friend at the garage in Newport. Jeremy helps him with his work there.”

“What kind of work?”

“Blood work,” Ludwig said, crunching the hard-boiled sweet between his teeth. “I’m sure you’ll find Jeremy eventually. Tell him to come back to work when you see him. I’ll raise his fees like he wants. It’s been hard to perform experiments when I can only use leftover supplies.”

“Ye’re optimistic,” Tavish said. “After what ye told me, I’ll be happy if I don’t find him drowned in a ditch full of rainwater.”

“I have the utmost confidence in you. After all, blood calls out for blood,” Ludwig said. “You’ll work better than the machines, my friend.”

“But nae better than a giant raccoon stomach.”

“Hm.” Ludwig stroked his chin in thought. “How so?”

“What? I thought we were blurting out random words.” Tavish dusted off his coat. “I’m getting out of yer hair like I promised. I know whose door I’d kick down when I can’t find him.”

“Remember to use the front door next time. I’ll even give you a free eye examination,” Ludwig called from behind him, as Tavish headed back down the aisle to the door. “There’s nothing to see at the back.”

When Tavish stepped out of the drugstore, the sun was coming up from the east side of the overcast sky. The sun was too weak to warm Tavish through his heavy clothes. Tavish could barely feel the sun on his exposed face, and he wished he could tuck his face under the collar of his coat.

Tavish’s thoughts drifted back to the smiling young man in the photo tucked away in his wallet. A week ago, Jeremy had crossed this doorway and trotted down this street before he disappeared off the face of the earth. Tavish had walked in Jeremy’s footsteps and talked to the people he knew, but Tavish didn’t know him beyond the bits and pieces that made up his life. Jeremy was either crazy or desperate or stupid to work here; Tavish couldn’t decide which he was. 

As Tavish headed the way he had come, he looked down the back alley he had sneaked into. The alley was as silent and still as when he had been marched out of it. Whatever rabbit hole that Jeremy was hiding in, Tavish hoped it wasn’t behind the steel door at the back of the drugstore. He didn’t think the things locked behind that door were alive.


End file.
